Robert Harding Pittman (New York, 1966) grew up in Boston and Hamburg, the son of a German mother and American father. After taking his undergraduate and graduate degrees in environmental engineering, an area of concern that continues to inform his work, he received an M.F.A. in Photography and Film/Video at the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). His main interest is how different cultures interact with the environment and how they manage “development”.
He has reccently released his new photography book, “Anonymization”, compiling his work from various countries over the past ten years. George Eastman House curator Alison Nordström and environmentalist Bill McKibben have written essays for the book. The project has been nominated for the Prix Pictet and the book has been nominated for the German Photobook Award (Deutscher Fotobuchpreis).
His award winning documentaries, which address many of the same issues treated in “Anonymization”, have been shown at festivals around the world. Currently, together with with actor and activist Martin Sheen, he is working with CFF Films in Germany on a new documentary film, “From under our feet”, about people across the globe being displaced by open-pit coal mining.
